Break Away from the Ball
by New 90s Heat
Summary: Claude takes a bored Leonie to a familiar yet new place during the Garreg Mach Ball. This chance seems to be a much bigger deal for him than it is for her.


Leonie shut the door behind her.

When she entered the Garreg Mach Monastery for the first time, she never really gave much thought about the kinds of people she would be meeting. She figured she would be surrounded by snobby, uppity noble kids the moment she set foot in the Officer's Academy.

Not that that didn't happen, but a great number of the noble kids she met were actually decent people. Sure, she loved it when opportunities to make Lorenz or Ferdinand eat dirt in training sessions showed up every now and then, but all in all, she found herself making friends with some of these nobles.

So Leonie didn't object when the heir to the Leicester Alliance's paramount house grabbed her hand and led her to the platform behind the Professor's desk.

She noticed immediately that the moonlight trickled into the room through the stained glass and gave the Golden Deer classroom a subdued natural light source. Tints of pale yellow washed over their bodies.

"The classroom looks pretty at this time of night, doesn't it?" Claude said. "Teach asked Ignatz and I to tidy up here one afternoon, but we got distracted and ended up staying a little later than we expected. That ended up being a blessing in disguise. We learned that the moon is angled perfectly against the class windows at this time."

The two took a seat on the platform. Leonie marveled at the sight for a moment before furrowing a brow and shooting a look at Claude. "You dragged me away from the ball to look at the way the classroom looks at a specific time of night?"

The house leader put his hands up defensively, shrugging. "Hey, you were the one that came to me and said you were bored."

Leonie pouted. Over the professor's desk, she could see the how the moon projected the pattern on the pale yellow stained glass onto the floor.

Most of it anyway, hers and Claude's silhouettes were clearly visible as well. They were nearly conjoined though, and it was upon this observation that Leonie realized how close the two were sitting.

It wasn't uncomfortable. Leonie had become surprisingly close to Claude von Riegan during the several months she's spent at the Officer's Academy. She overheard their professor refer to the two of them as his "star pupils" to Alois one morning at the fishing dock. While she was more than proud to have been considered a model student by Captain Jeralt's own son, she was a bit embarrassed to be sharing his favor with the house leader.

Leonie craned her neck towards the ceiling and gave Claude a sideways glance. "You know, I think most girls who were alone with a boy tonight are at the Goddess Tower right now. You know the legend, right?" She said half-jokingly.

Claude shrugged again. "Yeah, well, I figured it'd be really crowded right now for that reason," He turned his head away. "I wanted to bring you somewhere special that only I knew about. Oh, and Ignatz of course."

Leonie stared at the back of his head for a moment before leaning backwards and lying on her back, resting her head on her hands. Unless their professor had gum under his shoes or something the wooden platform should be clean enough.

The space next to her felt incomplete and when Claude shifted Leonie expected him to lay down too, but he didn't. Still, it felt nice. For all the time they spent surrounded by people, having responsibilities to take care of, or having assignments to work on, it was good to just be alone like this doing nothing.

"So Ignatz knows about this too, huh."

"Indeed. If he wasn't blind as a bat he would probably paint this scene," Claude smiled. "Without us in it, obviously."

She let out a sigh. "Do you think he might come here tonight?"

"No way. Did you see him? He looked like he awakened a new passion while he was dancing earlier."

Leonie giggled at that. "I couldn't imagine."

Then, suddenly, Claude's face lit up and he stood. He extended his hand once again. "Let's dance."

Leonie sat up and stared at him for what felt like the 50th time that night. "What for?" She questioned.

Claude's look of surprise was incredible, Leonie wished she could bottle it up and save it to sell later. "Huh? U-um, well, I didn't see you dancing a while ago so I thought maybe you were just embarrassed to be doing it in front of everyone. At least here it's just us two."

She couldn't help giving him a skeptical look, but she closed her eyes and relented, taking the outstretched hand that seemed seconds away from being retracted.

Claude gave her a warm smile. She couldn't help but feel like he was acting weird, but she played along. She didn't really hate it, anyway.

And then, the two of them danced. The ball music was distant. In the increased focus of trying to follow each other's lead they sometimes couldn't hear it at all. She felt rather ridiculous trying to match his rhythm. She understood no interpretation of the word.

She looked up at Claude to see how he was doing and he seemed rather… content? Maybe glad was more the word. In spite of her clumsiness, he seemed completely fine with this development.

His eyes moved up to meet hers and she subconsciously looked back down. This was a very unfamiliar situation for her.

"You know, Leonie, you're one of only two people capable of surprising me without even trying. Even when I think I have you figured out, you always seem to catch me off guard."

Leonie looked to the side. "Who's the other?" She asked, but she answered along with him.

"The professor, of course."

They shared a short laugh at that. Claude sighed happily and gazed over to the window. "It's been such an amazing school year, hasn't it? Every month, there's always something interesting happening. And we have an interesting bunch, too. The Empire's heir apparent and the Kingdom of Faerghus' crown prince is along with us for the ride."

"Yeah, I see what you mean. With people like Edelgard, Dimitri, or even Lady Rhea around, sometimes I have to remind myself that Garreg Mach isn't the center of the world."

In a fleeting feeling of boldness, Claude pulled her closer. "I think something big is brewing here in Garreg Mach. With Flayn's kidnapping and Miklan turning into a Crest Beast, I think there's a greater force out there trying to start a great change.. Maybe I'm just being overly cautious. I don't know what the future holds for us, but we better be ready."

Leonie glanced up at him again. He'd taken on a serious face at the sudden mood change of subject matter. She dug her fingers into his back to grab his attention. "Hey, forget about that for now. We can worry about that tomorrow. I'll gladly talk to you about the weird goings-on of recent times later.

Claude softened and gave her a short nod. "Y-yeah. You're right, Leonie."

She beamed at him. "Tonight, let's just hide our cares under the table and be a couple of school kids."

At this, the boy momentarily froze. "A-a couple?"

Leonie gave him another look.

Claude cleared his throat. "A couple of school kids. Right. Good. We're young, so let's just enjoy ourselves this evening." He assured himself. Leonie couldn't help but chuckle silently.

When the muffled music from far away died down, Claude tried to let her go, but she stayed right where she was. "We aren't handing each other to someone else for a dance." She said.

Claude widened his eyes in surprise and looked around. "Oh, um, right."

He got down on one knee and took her hand, bowing his head. "Thank you for allowing me this dance, my lady."

Leonie chuckled. "Look at this! The heir of House Riegan, bowing down to a commoner. At the night of a ball, no less."

He raised an eyebrow, smirking. "We are equals here in the Officer's Academy."

She returned his smirk with her own. "Says who?"

"I'm sure Teach could attest to that."

Claude lifted her hand to kiss it, but as if the man himself had heard the word 'Teach', Byleth pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Claude froze, Leonie's hand inches away from his face. The hunter girl seemed mostly unbothered by the whole situation.

Byleth gave the two of them his usual tired stare, though he remained motionless where he was. The scheming house leader and his enigmatic professor locked eyes at an uncomfortable fixation. Byleth's expression hadn't changed, but he was unusually stiff considering his current position.

Leonie furrowed her brow while the two men in the room had a staring contest. "What's your problem?" She asked, cutting the strange tension.

Claude let go of her hand and deflected. "Teach, this isn't-"

Byleth took a step back out of the classroom and shut the door again.

And the two of them were alone again, a bit dumbfounded by the sudden interruption.

Leonie stared at her hand.

"Ahem. Well, I suddenly feel a bit queasy," Claude scratched the back of his head. "It's been fun, Leonie, but I think I should head back to the ball. They're probably wondering where the head of the Golden Deer house is."

Claude opened the door for her and stepped out of the classroom following behind her.

He looked over in the direction of her dormitory before turning to head back to where the ball was. "See you la-"

"Wait!"

Claude only turned his head slightly when Leonie clumsily crashed her lips against his.

It was quick, and their foreheads clashed a bit too hard for her liking, but it happened, and she hit her target flush. She broke it off as suddenly as she initiated it.

Claude stood motionless in front of her, the scent of her plain sesame oil soap still fresh in his nostrils.

She let out a breath, then gave him a hard smirk. "I figured that if you weren't going to do it, then I might as well."

For the first time since he began life at Garreg Mach, Claude was completely lost for words.

Leonie left him with a casual salute and began the light jog back to her quarters.

Claude didn't move until Raphael showed up snapped him out of it.

* * *

_I am absolutely in LOVE with the Golden Deer. When compared to the other two houses, they really are the black sheep of the Officer's Academy. Also, Leonie is way too under-appreciated as a character. I thought it'd be interesting to put someone suave like Claude in the position of 'boy in love vying for his crush's attention'. It worked out that not only is Leonie's personality perfect, but she's also two years older than him._

_I used male Byleth for this fic, but if I were to make more of Three Houses, I'll probably alternate between male and female a lot. We need to see more non-Byleth pairings! I might do Catherine/Shamir next, who knows._


End file.
